{Lifestyle} Blogger Jealousy

Blogger jealousy. I feel pretty confident when I say that we have probably all had it at one point or another.

It comes when you feel really great about the loaf of bread you just made. Even though it was like prying cement out of the pan and it didn’t cook all the way through, you hold that loaf up like it won the blue ribbon at the county fair.

That feeling only lasts until you read a friend's blog who made ten loaves of nine-grain bread, took her five children to school, learned guitar, painted a mural, and sewed the family's Halloween costumes (yes, in April) in the same amount of time it took you to “master” the art of bread making.

I was having one of these days after spending hours on a craft project that I thought turned out really cute. The moment I logged into my Blogger account and started reading about what a friend made, my really cute craft item immediately turned to just mediocre.

The question here is why do we do this to ourselves? Why can’t we just be happy for other people and go on our merry way being equally or even more happy with ourselves?

I recently read a blog post over at youaremyfave.com that addressed this exact topic.

In the post, the author Melanie described some of the feelings I wrote about earlier. She opened it up for discussion on how we can get over our blogger jealousy. These are some of the suggestions:

Nothing comes from being jealous, so choose to be happy for others.

Keep working on your own projects and use the jealous feelings for positive ideas for how you can improve your own projects.

Take Internet breaks. Step away from blogging for a couple days.

Focus on what you like about your blog and what you are doing in your life.

The point is we are all so different. We really can’t compare ourselves to others because of that. For example, I have an older sister who is a craft queen. I know I won’t be exactly like her, but rather than get discouraged because of my lack of craft talent, I am impressed with her creativity and ability to make beautiful things.

Blogger jealousy, although real, doesn’t need to make us upset, but rather show us other's talents as well as our own.

--Ashley Bardsley is a contributing writer for LDS Living. The few things she enjoys more than traveling the world as an event coordinator include making and eating cupcakes, sleeping in and watching Saved by the Bell reruns with her husband.